20/02/2023

I missed the Transfiguration on Saturday. Today Jesus and the disciples have come down from Mount Tabor and yet again there are crowds around them; some wanting to hear the words of Jesus; some wanting healing and some just wanting to be there. It must be the humanity of Jesus that snaps at the persistence of the crowds. "How much longer must I be with you" is not an irritated response from Father Son and Holy Spirit, the Creator of our Universe and of all that is in it. Jesus is also truly man.

The wisdom praised in the first reading is not the same as human intelligence. If it were our world would be a far different place than it is today. The wisdom praised is more like the Faith the lack of which Jesus bemoans. It is not the brainpower that starting with the Ancient Greeks has become more and more powerful until today I am able to access the entire History of the World and the mysteries of matter at the click of my mouse.

Knowledge is a deceptive good; like gold it can be amassed and like gold in our world, it does not perish. Wisdom is what helps us  to face "the wonder of  being", to know that we have been created, to know that we are not "the gods" that our achievements seem to make us and most of all to know that there is an Evergreater Being who has created us to know love and serve for our Creator, who gives us wisdom to use our freedom to do his will, is Love.

Dear Lord you know what I need to do to make holy preparation for your great feast. Help me to face my sinfulness and with honesty strive for the holiness that is your will for me. Let me have the wisdom to truly avoid the occasions of sin and this Lent pour your grace into my heart and into the hearts of all your poorly shepherded souls on Earth. May Mary and all the Saints eternally present in your Love continue in their supplications for all sinners on Earth and for the Holy Souls in Purgatory.

 19/02/2023

I missed yesterday. This morning, Leviticus presents us with a summary of the Ten brought down from Mt Sinai by Moses. Dear Lord if your first choice had listened to your Word they would not ever have hardened their hearts as they did on  numerous occasions  while in the process of growing into the nation and people that still, today, are the witness of your Covenant with them.

Paul does not speak of a nation or a people. He avoids the egocentric nationalism of the Pharisees and their descendants. He tells each one of his congregation and also the millions of people that have lived are living and will live after them that Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three persons one God, loves, knows and supports each one of us in the freedom he has created for us. The Ever-greater person lets us chose to become a home fit for holiness that is our target as we worship.

Jesus returns to the roots of the Commandments. God does not approve anything we do that harms another person. The inner being of the Trinity is only Love. We have been given responsibility for our Earth. The deaths in the Earthquake in Turkey/Syria are not sought by God. The greed of the rich who built the tower blocks is no greater than the greed of the Vatican or of the "rich young man" who went sorrowfully away. The sun does shine on us all. The Material Universe is what it is. It is not programmed to make judgements about the morality of nations or individuals.

It is not Church structure that brings us to God but persons in the Church can reach a God-given perfection. It is my personal holiness that can make the Church the Holy of Holies; the dwelling-place on Earth for the Mercy bestowed by the suffering Christ; a dwelling place fitting, as much as it can be in human eyes,  for my Lord and my God.

Dear Lord let me learn to recognise your gifts to me, let me too be of humble of heart so that the pride that rises like the yeast in dough that is proving as I write this, does not continue to smother the grace you have encouraged me to seek out. May Mary's prayers help young people to withstand the lure of glamour and bodily satisfaction and may the sincerity of atonement in Purgatory come closer to the Mercy that guarantees a place in Heaven.

 17/02/2023

Our forefathers had huge problems to face as they left behind the hunting and gathering that was their fate after Eden. They did meet other humans and could not understand their speech. There is the presence of the Holy Spirit in all of the Bible and the tower of Babel could be a record of the People of God's first encounter with Ziggurat structures in Mesopotamia built by people whose language they did not understand. Human emotions are again attributed to God and he is portrayed as being in fear of what he has created.

Jesus, God's complete revelation of his triune Being to the people of Earth, tells us that we must never let our material successes, our own Towers of Babe, blind us to the fact that our life on Earth is not the be all and end all of our existence. Young and poor, old and rich we all have to die and it is at that final moment we will all know the reason for our worldly being.

The "some will not taste death until they see the Kingdom of God come with power" needs to be pondered with faith in our hearts as there is not an easy explanation. Jesus' other mysterious sayings all came to be understood in the light of events; e.g. "This is my body" the words of consecration uttered before the crucifixion. Peter asked about John "What about this man" and was answered by the brusque rebuke "What is it to you"?

 So many things about God are unknowable as everything that we do know about Father, Son and Holy Spirit is revealed to each of as the person we are meant to be when we turn to God, in emptiness of self, hoping to be one of the "Happy to be people, the Lord has chosen as his own".

Dear Lord you know that I feel touched by your grace and happy to be alive this morning. May I live today as I should without being sidetracked by knowledge of the failings in response to your love that are my sins and those of your Church. May Mary to whom the unborn Incarnation infancy, and youth of your Son were entrusted, continue with all the Saints to pray for all hearts to be opened to your Grace and for your Mercy to accept the spiritual atonement that is Purgatory.

 16/02/2023

There is a well known and often used saying in the North of England, "There's nowt as queer as folks" and in these times we can vary it a little to say "There's nowt as queer as "woke" folk". God's sign for his covenant with Noah has been stolen to be the badge of the enemies of both Mankind and God. Their pride is their sin and their  diversity is the unity they have with Satan. 

They are also plain daft as reproductive organs define male and female even in the animal kingdom. Those who have had the misfortune to be born indefinite must be treated with respect but the patronising seekers of uniformity are a voluble minority who need to go the way of the child molesters who, a few years ago began to seek a lowering of  the age of consent.

Jesus knew Satan as the opposition to Father, Son and Holy Spirit that all, except himself and his mother, experience in our beings. Jesus heard the words of Peter and treated them as if they came directly from the "Tempter" he had rebuffed face-to-face in the aloneness of the desert.

Peter became the foundation on which Jesus began the human structure which with the guidance by the Holy Spirit was to maintain his presence on Earth. After 2000 years, we know this as the RC Church. Poor Peter! What a responsibility to have been put onto one man. 

Of course, Peter was not alone and he had not only Mary and the Apostles to support him but many enthusiastic men and women joined the witnesses of the Resurrected Christ in full belief in the Holy Spirit and expectation of the Second Coming. St Paul in particular knew that the resurrected Jesus Christ had not left us alone as he had been in the desert and then in that hiatus between his death and Resurrection.

"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are God's". Jesus knew that the assaults by  Satan would begin as soon as he returned to the Father and continue to the end of time.

 Today,in the North of England, there is being played out yet another drama involving the Church structure and the wish to placate Caesar. An Archbishop of the Church, having been ordered by the Vatican to investigate nefarious conduct by a Bishop and also the events that lead to the suicide of a Cathedral Dean has avoided his duty by passing it to a lay person who had been given the title Chief Operating Officer of a different Diocese. What has this purely worldly administrative role got to do with Our Lord and his redemption of mankind, the saving of souls?

Popes, Archbishops priests in fact all members of the clergy and dedicated orders are absolutely nothing if they are not the "things of God" in that they form the visible form of Christ's Mystical Body. Almost immediately, however,  the acceptance as a necessity for there to be a human organisation originally to take care of "widows and orphans"but which was soon overcome by the same power of Mammon  that had corrupted the much vilified Judas, there began the conflict between holiness and worldliness in which today's English Hierarchy have faithlessly thrown in the towel. Westminster and Birmingham at the IICSA and Liverpool today.

Let them admit that there are many failures among the clergy who have damaged children and others. Let them admit that it is an added sin to pretend that this is not true. Let them admit that Church property is theft from the poor. Let them admit that over the centuries their predecessors in both West and East have always failed to make the right choice between God and Caesar. 

Europe's great Cathedrals and Monasteries are proof of this.

Dear Lord you are Creator and Saviour of Mankind. I know that I am responsible for my own life and I, although still upset by the failings of richer and powerful, am still aware that I fail in total response to the truth I read in your Gospels and writings of holy men. Please stir up the faith of those comfortable prelates who cosy up to the Caesar/ worldly society of our times and cannot  defy Satan by preaching only truth without regard for their own status and wealth. May Mary and all the saints continue to pray that thy people on Earth are not mislead by miscreant clergy and that reactions to others' misdeeds does not become the dominant force in my life. I know that I am always in need of Mercy and hope to share the same with my generation of Holy Souls in purgatory.

 15/02/23

The people who first began to fill the region we now know as the Middle East were close to God and were guided by him. They did not have the wealth of sources that we have when it comes to explaining the natural events which they experienced. They were self-centred and  interpreted their worldly experiences through their own awareness of them. 

They were, however, given a consciousness of God and their interpretation of spiritual awareness projected onto God their own humanity, their acceptance or rejection of other humans, love or hate, strength and power. Thus the first part of the story recorded on the scrolls has God as a super-human, walking with Adam in the garden. 

The Old Testament contains the record of God's self-revelation and of man's response. God has a total awareness of everything that has happened, is now and of all the possibilities that could be or will happen, for in this world each individual is known to him. Each individual is good and is loved into being. But each individual is also free now and thus there is an incalculable number of possible futures and pasts that might have been, known only to God. 

The Father, Son and Holy Spirit has through the Incarnation, teaching life, death and Resurrection completed the education of Mankind. God has made known, Hiself, the Trinity that is His being and the Love that limits our Freedom. He has founded his Church and promised to be with her to the end of time.

What are we doing in response?

Dear Lord, may I be open to receive the Grace that you lavish upon mankind and by prayer seek to do your will in everything that I am. May Mary the only sinless human being since Adam and Eve before the fall continue to plead for sinful humanity that we might reverse our sins by growing in our love for you. May the Holy Souls who now totally aware only of you and of their sins receive the grace that previously they rejected.

 14/02/2023

There is never any doubt about the teaching Jesus revealed to his first disciples in Palestine. His message was first to the Jews but the pagans too heard his words and were intrigued and even in awe. We are not given the details of his daily life and sometimes there seem to be contradictions in Gospel accounts. Jesus is reported to have said to those he first cured to tell no-one about the miracle they had received. This would have been a pretty tall order for the manacled maniac from whom Legion was expelled and for the blind who were filled with the joy of sight.

Today, however, Jesus instructs some of his disciples to act as did John the Baptist "to go out and prepare the way for the Lord" he is starting a public awareness campaign. His instructions are clear. Prepare nothing for this first mission. Your brief is to announce that the Lord is close to us; the Kingdom of God is at hand and show this by the poverty of your persons Hold onto nothing but obey and trust. Walk without footwear. Let your feet feel the dust and pebbles between your toes.

These instructions are very far from me in time and completely "odd"for my cultural consciousness. Imagine some scruff coming to the door shoeless, or uninvited into your garden and greeting you with "Peace"and if "peace" is not returned the visitor turns on his heel and goes to do the same at the next house. We call it "cold-calling" today and put notices on our doors to deter the unwelcomed strangers .

I don't think that we had a debriefing in the Gospels about the results brought back or met with on arriving at the towns so prepared. The message to be announced by the 72, however, is for all times. There is never any change in the Love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The pagans who heard St Paul and Barnabas, however, have an immediate joyful reaction to the clarity of "I have made a light of you for the nations". This isn't too surprising as the  Apostles were radiant with the certainty of the Resurrection; the way, the truth and the life; God with us. The only light that will never dim.

Dear Lord you know that these thoughts that I have put into words have been found in my heart and I am happy to read them even though I know how unreliable I can be. You never deceive. I have to drop my self concern and strive to follow you today. May the prayers of Mary and all who are with you in Paradise come to my aid now and may the Holy Souls continue to wait in hope that they can truly atone for their sins and thus welcome your Mercy into their hearts.

 13/02/2023

Dear Lord, I can only appeal to you with a sigh that comes straight from the depths of my heart. Jesus was overcome by the persistence of the Pharisees who still wanted a sign even though they were witnessing the incarnation and he sighed a sigh that I can still hear. I am still like them persistent, but for me it is in my non understanding of the Evil which I know is ever present in my being. 

It seems from Genesis that Adam and Eve were not alone in the world which was teeming with animal life and you too were always with them witnessing the crime of Cain, you marked him so that others would not harm him. I have to ask you why you did not stop the crime.

I do know that my own sins are the result of my own freedom choosing evil. I choose to succumb to temptation, to the self-centredness that  accepts every temptation as my right to have. But poor Cain and poor Abel! Cain did not have the the guidance of the prophets, the history of the Chosen People. He did not have Mary and the Incarnation. He did not have the teachings of Jesus, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection. Poor Cain was there alone in the Universe, totally aware of  and absorbed in his own being and he began to hate his own companion and victim.

Dear Lord, whence did that evil come? I do not want to know evil. I want to know Father Son and Holy Spirit and with the Grace freely won for all of us on Calvary come into your presence which is only Love but now I am weeping for the weight of responsibility carried by that first family in Eden which results in the unimaginable pain of the Cross witnessed by your and our Mother Mary. May she and all the saints pray for the grace refused by all sinners on Earth and awaited in the suffering of Purgatory to be freshly bestowed upon all creation.